Most of you probably know of the successful “Freiheit statt Angst” (Freedom Not Fear) in Berlin and Brussels which started as a small demonstration for privacy and civil rights in the digital age in 2006 and became bigger and bigger. But did you know that once a year civil rights activists also meet in Luxembourg, to demonstrate against surveillance and censorship? If you are reading this blog, chances are high that you know it – but most of you probably don’t, so please let me introduce you to “Freedom Not Fear made in Luxembourg”.
Being part of the movement since 2009, I witnessed first hand how difficult it is to mobilize people in a country where the banking secret is still upheld and people, while privacy-aware, think that the government does a great job to protect their private data. It never helped that most of the time the “established” parties did not want to join the movement and sent their youth wings in order to keep the demonstration small and (almost) invisible.
For the last 4 years we were able to mobilize around 50-75 people every year, also because people from Germany came to our help. If our neighbors had not supported the demonstration, we would have been 50 people at most in a country of 520.000 inhabitants. But nothing could stop us, each year we went to the streets and voiced our concerns and this year will not be different: on September 15th we’ll take the streets and prove that we will fight for our civil rights and try to stop mass surveillance and censorship.
The #FnF12 Luxembourg will take place on Saturday, September 15th, at 14:00 starting from Place de la Gare. More information, including a video invite can be found here.
The Freedom not Fear Luxembourg Network
